"Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday that Trump’s popularity is evidence that “nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism” in the Republican Party"
Hmmm.
Wondering about that.
It's been said here (by at least one very insightful poster) that Trump is really campaigning as if he WAS "third party".
Could it be that those who support him comprise the ad-hoc members of that "new party"?
As distinguished from the existing "Republican" party?
One could still be a Registered Republican -- or an independent -- or a "Reagan democrat" (if there are still any around), and yet align themselves with the as-yet-unformed new party that Trump (and his message) personify.
In the same way that some of the Whigs began to "think different" and eventually coalesced into the foundling Republican party of the 1850's, leaving those Whigs who were impervious to change behind -- as the GOPe seems to be in the process of, today.
Calls to mind some lyrics, courtesy of Mr. Dylan:
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
With another one for guys like Jeb!
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
Your empty handed armies, are all going home
Your lover who just walked out the door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
The ground beneath the GOPe may be shifting, like Baby Jeb's moving carpet....